Cash boost from Community Choices fund

Community cash for participatory budgeting initiatives

Communities across Scotland are to benefit from £1.5 million funding which will give people more power to make decisions directly on spending in their local areas.

The Community Choices Fund is targeted at work in deprived areas, and for the first time community groups as well as public authorities, including local authorities, were able to apply for funding to organise their own Community Choices budgeting events.

The fund received well over 100 applications with 16 successful community projects and 12 public authorities spanning the breadth of Scotland. A full list of successful applicants is provided below.

The projects include:

• The Joint Community Councils of Moray, £46,500 to use the Community Choices process to help tackle social isolation
• Aberdeen City Council, £100,000 to target the 8 most deprived areas in the city to help reduce community isolation
• Edinburgh City Council, £81,895 to support events on health and hate crime
• North Carrick Community Benefit Company, £95,868 to recruit 8 community participation champions from underrepresented communities
• Burnfoot Community Futures Housing, Hawick £39,000 to address social and community needs.

Leith Links Community Council was among the community projects to receive funding. The community council was awarded £20,869 to support their ‘CommUNITY links: Brightening Local Lives’ initiative.

Local Government and Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said: “It’s the commitment of this government to give communities more control to shape their futures. I am delighted to see communities applying for Community Choices funding and to read about the innovative and creative ways communities are working to address the issues that are important to the people in their community. It is also pleasing to see that we have engagement with Community Choices right across the country from Shetland to the Scottish Borders.

“The Community Choices Fund offers an opportunity for decisions to be made by people in their local communities who are best placed to know what their community needs.”

The Community Choices Fund builds on the Scottish Government investment in participatory budgeting over the last two years. More information about participatory budgeting is available at: http://pbscotland.scot